I
General informationThe
first Romanian industrial property law was the Trademark Law, adopted by the
Parliament in 1879. It was on the occasion of its adoption that the question
of a patent law was also raised.

In 1880 the Parliament
was presented the draft of a patent law; said draft was not adopted. The first
Patent Law entered into force on January 17, 1906.

1.
International conventions and treaties ratified by RomaniaRomania
is a party to the following international conventions and treaties in the field
of industrial property:

Paris Convention (1883)
for the Protection of Industrial Property. Romania accessed to it in 1920 and
ratified all the revised texts.

Convention Establishing
the World Intellectual Property Organization (1967). Romania ratified it in
1968.

2.
Other agreementsAfter
1990, Romania also concluded other agreements which comprise provisions relating
to industrial property:

Agreement Concerning the
Association of Romania to the European Economic Communities and Interim Agreement
between Romania and the European Communities (comprising provisions on industrial
property).

Romania - United States
Trade Agreement, concluded in October 1993, which was the basis for the grant
of the Most Favoured Nation Clause and which also contains provisions on copyright,
protection of industrial property and trade secrets. The Agreement also provides
for the accession of Romania to the Geneva Convention Concerning the Protection
of Phonograms Producers and for a legal framework for the enforcement of industrial
property rights.

Agreement on Cooperation
between Romania and the EFTA countries, signed in 1993; it also contains provisions
concerning the protection of industrial property.

Marrakech Agreement Establishing
the World Trade Organisation;

Agreement on Patent Cooperation
between the Romanian Government and the European Patent Organisation ( Cooperation
Agreement ) entered into force in October, 1996.

3.
Patent legislation in force

Law no.64 of 1991 on patents
for invention;

Government decree no. 125/1992
concerning the Implementing Regulations of Law no. 64/1991

Government ordinance no.
41/1998 concerning the fees in the field of industrial property protection and
the use thereof;

In Romania, the patent
for invention is the sole title of protection for inventions;

The term of the patent
is 20 years and starts on the date of the regular national filing of the application;

The right to the patent
for invention belongs to the inventor or to his successor in title; in the case
of the employee-inventors, the right to a patent belongs either to the inventor
or to the employer, according to Article 5 of the Patent Law;

The definitions of the
patentability conditions are harmonized with the international regulations in
force;

The patent applications
are published immediately after the 18 - month term from the date of regular
national filing or from the claimed date of priority.

The published patent applications
benefit of provisional protection until the patent is issued.

The examination of patent
applications may be requested in maximum 30 months since the date of filing;

The patent is subject to
public opposition during a six-month term from the publication of the decision
for grant.

III Patentability

1.
An invention shall be patentable if it is new, involves an inventive step and
is susceptible of industrial application.

NoveltyAn invention shall be taken to be new if it is not comprised
in the state of the art.The
state of the art comprises all the knowledge that has been made available to
the public before the date of the claimed and recognized priority. The state
of the art for establishing novelty comprises the content of the patent applications
as filed with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, having a regular
date of filing or an earlier priority and having become public before or after
the date of filing of a subsequent application.

The invention is not deemed
disclosed if the inventor or his successor in title disclosed it in a twelve-month
period prior to the date of filing of the patent application or to the date
of the claimed and recognized priority.

Inventive
stepAn
invention shall be taken to involve an inventive step if it is not obvious to
a person skilled in the art from that matter comprised in the state of the art.

Industrial
applicationAn
invention shall be taken to be capable of industrial application if its subject-matter
can be used in at least one field of activity and if it can be reproduced as
often as necessary while maintaining its characteristics.

- chemical
and biological substances, except those which already exist in nature and which
were not subjected to actions involving creative effort;

- physical
or physical and chemical mixtures;

- microorganisms
which were created or isolated by means of selection involving mutations;

- plant
varieties;

- animal
breeds.

ProcessActivity
resulting in making or in modifying a product (biological or genetical processes
included).

MethodActivity which has results of a qualitative nature ( measurement,
analysis, control, diagnosis or human or veterinary medical treatment )

4.
Disclosure of invention

An invention shall be disclosed
in the description, drawings and claims in a manner which is clear and complete
enough as well as correct from the scientific and technical points of view for
the invention to be performed by a person skilled in the art without involving
an inventive step.

5.
Unity of invention

The patent application
shall relate to one invention only or to a group of inventions which are so
linked as to form a single inventive general concept.Where the application fails to meet the requirement of
unity, it may be divided by the applicant or his succesor in title, upon his
own initiative or upon the request of the patent office, until a decision on
the patent application is taken.Where the applicant has not divided the application, said
application is published in its non-unitary form.

IV Filing a patent application

1.
Who may apply for a patent for invention

Romanian natural and
legal persons ;

Foreign natural persons
having their domicile in Romania;

Foreign legal persons
having their headquarters in Romania;

Foreign natural or
legal persons having their domicile or business headquarters outside Romania,
within the framework of the international conventions on inventions where
Romania is a party ( Paris Convention, PCT ) or within the framework of mutual
agreements.

2. Language
of applicationThe
patent application and the related mail shall be drawn up and filed at the State
Office for Inventions and Trademarks in Romanian.

3.
Confidentiality. SecrecyInformation
comprised in the patent application will be kept confidential until the application
is published by the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks. Disclosure of
said information without the consent of the applicant or of his successor in
title is forbidden, regardless of the manner in which a person came to know
it and regardless of its capacity.Descriptions of inventions in the field of national defense
and state security made on the territory of Romania shall be kept secret where
declared such by the competent authorities.

4.
Representation

Where the applicant or
his successor in title is a foreign citizen, he may be represented only by an
authorized industrial property attorney (professional representative). The list
of authorized industrial property attorneys entered in the National Register
is published in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin regularly.The
professional representative is empowered by the applicant by means of an individual
power of attorney for every patent application filed at the State Office for
Inventions and Trademarks.

5.
Patent application documents

The application shall contain:

the prescribed form
of the request for grant (filled in);

a description of the
invention;

claims;

drawings, referred
to in the description.

6.
Date of filingThe
date of regular national filing is that date on which all the above-mentioned
documents, drawn up in Romanian, are filed at the State Office for Inventions
and Trademarks.Foreign
applicants who have filed the description, the claims and the drawings in a foreign
language shall file a Romanian translation of the above-mentioned documents within
two months of filing. The recognized date of filing is the date of the initial
filing.

7.
Prescribed form of request for grantThe
prescribed form of request for grant is standard and is made available by the
State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, free of charge. The patent application
shall be signed by the applicant or by his professional representative.

Designation
of the inventorThe
patent application shall designate the inventor. The designation shall be made
on filing or later, within a fifteen-month period from filing or from the claimed
priority date.

Priority
claimingConventional
priority or exhibition priority may be claimed in the patent application. In
order to have priority recognized, the application shall be filed at the State
Office for Inventions and Trademarks within twelve months from the date of the
earliest priority or within six months from the date on which the invention
has been exhibited in an official or officially recognized exhibition.Where
the applicant failed to claim the right of priority upon filing his patent application,
he may claim it within two months from the date of filing.Claimed
priorities shall be proved by priority documents filed within three months from
the date of the regular national filing.

8.
Drawing up the patent application documentsThe requirements to be met by the description, the claims
and the drawings are as a general rule similar to those used at international
level.

9.
Where to file a patent application and howThe patent application shall be filed by the applicant
himself or by his authorized representative having his domicile or his business
headquarters in Romania, directly at the Registry of the State Office for Inventions
and Trademarks or by mail.

V Patent grant procedure

After having been filed, the
patent application is subject to the following procedures:

preliminary examination

publication

substantive examination

publication of the decision
to grant a patent

public opposition

issue of patent

1.
Preliminary examinationThe date of filing is granted after having checked the existence
of a patent application comprising an explicit request for grant of a patent and
identifying data of the applicant, the existence of the description of the invention,
of the claims as well as of the drawings, where appropriate, everything having
to be drawn up in Romanian.Where
a date of filing was granted, the office further checks whether the requirements
concerning representation, formalities of application, right to a patent, right
of priority, payment of prescribed fees, drawing up of the description, the claims
and the drawings have been met.

Where certain documents are missing,
the applicant shall be informed of the lack and shall be given a time period
to respond.

2.
Publication of a patent application

Where a regular national filing
of a patent application was made, the patent fees were paid and no decision
for grant, refusal or withdrawal was taken, the patent application shall be
published immediately after the expiry of an eighteen-month period from the
date of filing or from the claimed date of priority.

Upon applicant's request, subject
to payment of an additional fee, publication may occur within a time shorter
than 18 months or on later date.

The publication of a patent application
may be accompanied by that of a search report, subject to payment of an adequate
fee. The search report may be published at the same time with the application
or subsequently.

3.
Substantive examination

Request for examination

may be made upon the date
of filing or within thirty months from filing.

shall be accompanied by the
fee for substantive examination ( where the fee has not been paid within thirty
months from filing, the patent application shall be deemed surrendered and
shall be refused).

Term of examination

The patent application shall
be examined within an eighteen-month term from the date when examination was
requested.

The examination fee is not refunded
when the application is withdrawn after the beginning of the examination procedure.

Development of examination
procedure

During the examination procedure,
one checks whether:

the invention is patentable;

the patent application is
unitary;

the priority is claimed appropriately;

the invention complies with
the patentability conditions.

Where there are objections to the
application, the applicant is requested, by a motivated notification, to send
his remarks and, where appropriate, to amend the description, the claims and the
drawings. The amendments shall not extend beyond the content of the disclosure
made in the patent application upon filing.

The decision to grant
a patent for invention or to refuse the grant is taken by an examining board
of the patent office on the basis of the examination report drawn up by the
examiner.

All the decisions taken by the
office are motivated and are written in the National Register of Patent Applications;
they are communicated to the applicant or to his successor in tittle within
30 days from decision making.

The motivation of the decision
is based only on facts which the applicant was able to comment.

The decisions of the
State Office for Inventions and Trademarks may be appealed within three months
of notification thereof.

The notice of appeal is examined
by a Reexamination Board of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
The decisions of the board are notified to the parties. These decisions may
be appealed for at the Municipal Court of Bucharest.

4.
Publication of the decision to grant a patent

The decisions to grant patents
for invention shall be published in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin
within thirty days; the description, the claims and the drawings shall be published
in maximum three months.

5.
Public opposition

A third party may request the
Patent Office to revoke a decision to grant wholly or in part; the request may
be submitted within six months from the publication of the decision in the Official
Bulletin.

The request for revocation is
considered as having been made if the adequate fee has been paid.

The request for revocation shall
be made in writing and shall be motivated.

The grounds for revocation shall
refer only to the failure to comply with the patentability conditions: novelty,
inventive step, industrial application.

After the expiry of the opposition
term, the request for revocation is judged by the Reexamination Board of the
Office, which has a different componence than the board which took the decision
to grant. An appeal against its decision can be made at the Municipal Court
of Bucharest within three months from the communication.

6.
Issue of patent

After the expiry of the opposition
term, the Director General of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks
issues a patent for invention based on the decision to grant, if said decision
was not revoked by the Reexamination Board.

Where the patent has been amended
as a result of the opposition procedure, it shall be issued in its amended version.

The issue fee shall be paid by
the proprietor of the patent within 12 months from the date of the publication
of the decision to grant in the Official Bulletin.

Upon issuance, the proprietor
of the patent is obliged to pay renewal fees for the years that passed from
the date of filing till the date when the patent is issued, the year of issue
included.

The patent grant procedure
is presented in the attached diagram.

VI Rights and duties
of patentees

The patent for invention confers
on the patentee the right to prevent third parties from performing the following
acts, without his authorization:

for
products: manufacture, commercialisation, offer for sale, use, importation
or storage meant for commercialisation, offer for sale or use thereof;

for processes or methods:
use thereof.

The
extent of the protection conferred by patent depends on the content of the claims
which are interpreted while taking into account the description and the explanatory
drawings.

Where the patent applications
are published, the natural or legal persons entitled to the grant of a patent
benefit of the rights conferred by a patent, temporarily, starting from the
date of national regular filing until the issuance of the patent.

Lack of payment of renewal fees
will result in the loss of the rights conferred by the patent for invention.

VII Defence of rights
related to inventions

A patent for invention issued
by the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks may be revoked, wholly or
in part, by the Municipal Court of Bucharest, upon the request of a third party
wherever the requirements of patentability were not met. The request for revocation
may be filed during the whole term of patent.Misappropriation
of inventorship is an offence and is punished by the Criminal Code.

Manufacture, illegal use or commercialisation
of the subject - matter of a patent or any other infringement of the rights
conferred by a patent is deemed an infringement and is punished by the Criminal
Code.

Disputes relating to inventorship,
patent property or other rights conferred by the patent, patrimonial rights
included, are settled by the law courts.

VIII Exploitation of
patents in RomaniaThe proprietor of a patent may exploit his invention in
Romania, freely, sole or in cooperation with Romanian or foreign companies;
he may transfer his rights by assignment, by licensing or by testamentary succession.

In case of amendments to previous
inventions, the patent can only be exploited with the consent of the proprietor
of the patent for the invention that was amended.

According to the principles of
the Paris Convention, failure to work or insufficient working of an invention
is punished by law by grant of non-voluntary licences or ex officio licences.

IX Fees

Filing, publication
and examination of a patent application, priority claiming, issue of a patent
for invention and maintenance in force of said patent are subject to the payment
of the fees, in the amounts and on the time limits provided in the Ordinance
no. 41/1998 of the Governement of Romania; presented in Annex
no. 1.